Riding the Koreanwave

lifestyle | TRends
Riding the Korean wave
Move over Hollywood, here comes Hallyuwood.
Anis Ramli
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accountants today | JANUARY 2011
Riding The Korean Wave
ven cosmetics giants Estee
Lauder, MAC and more
recently, Clinique, could not
escape the Korean revolution. The three Western cosmetics companies were among a slew
of skincare brands that have jumped on
the BB bandwagon. BB what?
BB, short for Blemish Balm, is a
foundation at its core made popular by
Korean celebrities. It’s also a Korean
cosmetic staple and the hottest trend
in skincare at the moment. In a market
dominated by Western imports, the success of the BB cream is monumental,
made even more so when Western companies decided to emulate the product.
There’s no escape from the Korean
Wave no matter where you look.
The Korean Wave, or ‘hallyu’ wave,
has swiftly gained trendsetter status
in Asia. This powerful lifestyle trend is
being driven by the spread of Korean
pop culture such as daytime soaps to
K-pop and idol bands, and the world, it
seems, can’t get enough of hallyu.
Once confined to the Asia Pacific
region, the hallyu wave has stormed
regional boundaries to sweep across
diverse markets in other countries,
including the Middle East and the US.
Take Korean cosmetics. The popularity of Korean cosmetic brands is even
more significant as many of the homegrown brands are considered young
in the market. Despite competing with
established imports, Korea’s cosmetics
industry grew 12.5 percent and was
valued at US$6.4 billion in 2009.
Part of the appeal is the fact that
many of the brands, such as The Face
Shop, Skin Food and Missha, are made
from pure, natural ingredients, filling
the present need for plant-based, freeof-chemicals skincare. Match this with
attractive packaging and affordability,
and it’s no wonder women from Japan
and Taiwan come to Korea in search of
Korean lines of beauty products.
Pop Culture Drivers
But skincare is only the tip of the iceberg
that has made South Korea among the
world’s top ten cultural exporters today.
Media and entertainment is another
huge part of the hallyu juggernaut.
South Korean TV dramas, ranging from
classics such as Winter Sonata to newer
productions like Princess Hours, Boys
Over Flowers and Iris aired in homes
across South East Asia, China, Japan,
Taiwan, and more recently, Dubai and
Iran. Responding to the popularity, the
Korea National Tourism Organization
(KNTO) has even introduced TV-dramarelated tours. Fans can either travel to the
film locations made famous in the series,
or attend fan club meetings. Interestingly,
the fan club of Korean boy band DBSK
ranks as the world’s largest according to
the Guinness Book of Records with over
800,000 fans in Korea alone.
JANUARY 2011 | accountants today
53
Riding The Korean Wave
The harnessing of the hallyu wave
to sell South Korea is a far cry from
a country that could not even provide
figures for its cultural exports prior to
1997. Historically, Korea has always been
more worried about fending off cultural
domination by China and Japan, focusing primarily on promoting domestic
travel and protecting traditional culture.
South Korea wasn’t even a popular tourist
destination. This mindset has changed.
In 2003, South Korea’s cultural exports
reached US$650 million, prompting the
government to look into the possibilities
and power of pop culture in marketing
tourism.
By enrolling idol bands such as Super
Junior, SNSD and 2PM to promote Korean
tourism in catchy ads, the nation’s tourism industry has benefited hugely from
the Hallyu wave. In November 2010, the
number of visitors to Korea increased by
12 percent to 8 million visitors compared
to the same period in 2009. Sixty-five
percent of those visitors were from Asia,
with Japanese and Chinese making up
the majority.
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accountants today | JANUARY 2011
Then there’s the Hallyuwood theme
park slated to open by 2012 with an
investment of KRW 2.8 trillion. Built on
a 990,000 square metre site in Gyeonggi
Province, the theme park will house studios where Korean dramas and films are
made, entertainment facilities, a museum, shops, Korean cooking classes and
restaurants. No doubt it will feed fans’
increasing hunger for all things Korean.
Tourism aside, the Hallyu wave has
been a springboard for other Korean
products, giving them high visibility overseas. Lifestyle brands such as Samsung
and LG have gained from riding on the
trend, and expanded market share considerably. Again, Korea’s obsession with
celebrity culture is fueling the spread of
the phenomenon. Using local celebrities
as brand ambassadors helps consumers identify with their favorite brands,
appealing emotionally to such groups as
Japanese housewives (electronics) and
Taiwanese teens (makeup).
Among the famous celebrity endorsers are Big Bang, brand ambassador
for LG, which together with stablemates
2NE1 produced the hit song Lollipop to
sell the eponymous phone. The Wonder
Girls are brand ambassadors for Sony
Ericsson phones in the Asia Pacific. To
front its campaigns, Laneige uses Song
Hye-kyo, the actress from the 2004 romcom Full House and a household name
in China. Kim Hyun Joong of SS501 and
Boys Over Flowers is the brand ambassador for The Face Shop that now has outlets in 19 countries. More recently, Yu-Na,
the 2009 winner of the World Figure
Skating Championship was appointed
brand ambassador for the 2010-2012 Visit
Korea Year. The campaign is aimed at
upgrading the nation’s brand value to
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Riding The Korean Wave
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attract 10 million foreigners and
earn US$10 billion in tourism
income. Apart from the obvious boost
for tourism, many other Korean
products, from pop music
and films to computer
games, fashion styles and
food are also part of the
hallyu wave phenomenon. K-pop, a term to
describe Korean popular music, has also been
making inroads into
Asian entertainment
markets, sweeping the
music charts and building multinational fan bases. Its similarity
to American hip hop, R&B, dance
and pop music makes it easily identifiable with a wholesome appeal,
despite being formulaic. Artists
such as Rain and the Wonder Girls are making a name in America, while others, such
as 2PM, Big Bang, the now-defunct DBSK,
2NE1 and SHINee have made inroads into
Japanese and Taiwanese music charts. SM
Entertainment, a Seoul-based star agency
whose stable includes Girls’ Generation
and Super Junior, saw outbound sales
jumping to US$25 million during the first
half of 2010, a notable increase from 2009’s
whole year sales of US$16 million. Ditto
for JYP Entertainment and YG, managers
of artistes like the Wonder Girls and Big
Bang and 2NE1 respectively.
How will the trend last before fizzling
out? Right now, hallyu is still going strong.
And with positive effects that include
increased foreign interest in Korean culture and language, rising tourist numbers,
and impressive revenue streams, the
Korean Wave is perhaps the best ride ever
to be experienced by the Korean nation. n
lifestyle | TRavel
T
he idea was to visit Roskilde,
once a thriving Viking community that lay west of
Copenhagen. It’s an easy
drive perfect for a day trip
that takes about 30 minutes on the E21,
that is, if you don’t miss Exit 11. Which
we did. But as it turned out, kismet had
grander ideas. Hesitant to turn back,
we let our spirit of adventure take over,
and soon found ourselves landing in the
quiet, off-the-grid village of Gershøj, a
place that – even if you were to Google
it – will not provide you much, let alone
lure you to visit. But it was in this tiny
town that we experienced the true spirit
of Denmark.
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accountants today | JANUARY 2011
Gershøj is a lovely hamlet with a
fishing bay that turns stunning in summer and boasts a rich collection of
conserved timber houses. Exiting the
highway, the road leading to the village
is a pleasant flat drive hugged by the
Roskilde Fjord on one side and vast
fields that blush red in summer from
strawberries and turn a mélange of
honey in autumn from wheat.
There are only about 300 inhabitants
in the village, and many living here are
commuters working in Copenhagen.
Long-time resident Annette Skaarup
says, “When you drive from the city
to Gershøj and see the fjord and the
greens, there’s no other feeling like it.
It takes all the day’s stress away.”
Written history of the town goes
back to the 13th century of a village
then named Gæshove, or in modern
Danish, Gåsehøj. In 1995, excavation
works that took place north of the
village’s church revealed, among others, the outline of a number of stone
buildings believed to date about 5,000
years old including a Viking Age farm.
There were only 12 houses in Gershøj
in the 18th century. Today, apart from
houses now numbering almost a hundred, and a recent construction of
a 30-metre telecoms beam for better mobile phone connectivity, pretty
much all else remains the same.
An Old Soul
an old soul
Outside Copenhagen, a true
Danish experience.
Anis Ramli
JANUARY 2011 | accountants today
57
An Old Soul
There are no malls or grocery stores in
the village. No Nike shops or McDonalds to
stain the landscape. But Gershøj is strong
in community spirit, and though there’s little by way of history to attract the regular
tourist, life goes on as it had for centuries in
true Danish style, reminding one of the life
of the past by way of the present.
On one visit last spring,
I walked through lanes past
backyards being readied for
barbecues in the summer.
The sun was out but it was
still a chilly day, yet people
were busy fixing their gardens and giving their fences
and homes fresh coats of paint. Others
took advantage of the clear day to have tea
and test their new garden furniture.
Typical of many small northern
European towns, Gershøj is a community with strong social responsibility. Neighbours watch out for each other
and, as though to drive the point home,
Annette’s husband, Michael, was called
to check on the stove of a neighbour who
forgot to turn it off as they left for the city
in a hurry. The community spirit is further enhanced by many social activities.
There is a senior club where members
meet regularly to play cards, and there
is a kids club where children and parents
meet for various events. Winters can be
harsh, drowning the village in snow so
thick that last year, they were cut off from
the city for several days. But when the
sun shines, the village parties with harbour festivals and carnivals staged by the
villagers, complete with a local skit about
what happens in the village.
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accountants today | JANUARY 2011
The tiny harbour
offers plenty of fishing. While tourists may
not know much about
Gershøj, it’s the opposite
with the locals. Summer
brings in kayakers, cyclers
and nature lovers out to
the bay. In the cold months,
before the water turns to ice, villagers
and locals come for winter swimming,
swimming in ice-cold water that seems to
be a popular sport in Scandinavia.
A few days in Gershøj make a good
base to explore nearby Roskilde, where
the Viking Ship Museum offers plenty of
distraction. Watch an ongoing workshop
restoring a 12th-century cargo ship found
in the fjord, or view five fully restored
11th-century Viking ships at the Viking
Ships Hall gallery, lurking eerily but full of
splendour nonetheless against the backdrop of the fjord. For something kitschy,
there’s a 50-minute tour of Roskilde Fjord
on a reconstructed square-sailed Viking
longboat. Be warned that when there’s no
wind you will have to row!
Elsewhere, the town of Hillerød, another pleasant 30-minute drive past infinite
farms lined with wind turbines and charming cottage-dotted towns, beckons busloads of tourists with its gloriously roman-
tic Frederiksborg Slot
(Castle). Built in the early
17th century by Christian
IV, it has all the trappings
of a fairytale confection:
a cobbled courtyard, an
extravagant fountain, and
a huge formal baroque garden. Transformed into the
National Museum of History in 1993, the
castle’s various rooms are a study in art
and decorative furniture, towering paintings of past royals and court scenes, and a
pictorial history of the land.
An escape to the castle’s third floor
will swiftly bring you back to the present.
Here is housed a collection of modern
paintings from the 20th and 21st centuries, including famous Danes such
as Queen Margrethe, Crown Prince
Frederik, painter Peter Severin Krøyer,
and Karen Blixen, aka Isak Dinesen, best
known for her book Out of Africa based
on her years spent as a farmer in Kenya.
Don’t leave the castle without a stroll
of the gardens. Dating from the 1720s
and completely restored in 1996 based
on studies of J.C. Krieger’s gardens from
1725, it features boxwood shrubs pruned
into the shape of four royal monograms
and landscaping borrowed from palace
designs in Italy and France.
As we watched the caravan of tourists prepare to leave the castle, our
guide, Gershøj born-and-bred Kristin
Ingolfsdottira said, “We may not have
the colourful history or the fancy castle,
but when you want to kick back, relax
and live the moment to find the soul of
Denmark, you come to Gershøj.” n